Original subtitles

Hey, Rog. More black potch.

ROGER: Nice. That's where we got that red-on-black down in that corner.

Yeah, man. We basically pulled out a couple of cracking little red-on-blacks.

Just watch the bund wall. Yeah, definitely, man.

The base of your bund wall is just a wall that we put up.

It separates the water and the silt from the dry side.

We don't want it breaching and coming on the dry side,

cos this is the pay dirt. This is what we wanna take.

Once it gets wet, it turns into mud, and it's a lot harder to process.

Getting out of your way right now, man.

These hydraulics are playing up especially when I reach right out.

Oh, yeah.

Oh.Oy, oy.Bloody hell, mate.

We've got a bund-wall breach here, man.

Oh, dude, it's coming in hard.

(BLEEP)

Get that digger out of there. Get it out, get it out.

Oh, mate, she's coming in hard, bro. (BLEEP)

Yeah, put that bund wall up. We gotta stop this bloody water

from coming in and going over the back.

It's gonna fill this hole up, man. We're pretty much screwed here.

It looks like we won't be digging here any time soon.

ROGER: These hydraulics, it's probably running a little low.

Man, as soon as I reached out, she just dropped.

I couldn't help it, man. Yeah, I know, man.

It's been doing that a little bit lately, but it's just getting worse today.

Not good, mate. Not good.

NARRATOR: In drought-stricken Lightning Ridge, New South Wales,

water is a precious commodity.

There's been no significant rain for 41 days,

and for Lee Hobden and Roger Williams,

AKA Slim Pickings,

it's vital for their pioneering mining technique...

What we're doing right now at the moment is totally different.

It's something that's never really been done.

..reprocessing waste silt

from old-timers' opal traps known as puddlers

and rescuing the smaller gemstones

that escaped through the mesh into the surrounding earth.

This is one of these old puddlers here.

So as they're feeding it, putting water in,

spinning it around like a big washing machine, spewing all the mud out,

all the silt and slurry would push through these gaps, through these holes.

That would still spit out up to a one-carat stone, really.

And that's what we're getting at the moment.

Water's going, Rog. Let's start feeding it in.

Let's go, boy, let's go.Do it.

Roger and Lee use water from Government Dam,

and they're responsible for recycling it,

removing the silt before feeding the water back into the reservoir.

I've done all types of mining, but this is a different venture.

I invested a lot of money into it.

Season target is $100,000.

We need to bloody hit our target.

But we're not even getting anywhere near it at the moment.

Mined opal for a living for 17 years.

That's really good. Good sign.

But I got in with Lee, and this is totally different.

I was a little bit sceptical at the start,

and, yeah, working silt.

Bit of potch going in.

Bit of colour would be better.

I haven't succeeded in too many ideas in my life.

I'm still single, and I don't have any children.

I haven't really got too many trophies on my wall.

And this is one trophy I wanna succeed in. That's for sure.

That's hard as. Don't want that going in.

We don't want any big pieces going up here.

Rocks.Whoa.Rocks. Rocks. Yeah, I can see.

(ROCKS RUMBLING)Take a look, man.

Honestly, you can definitely hear that shin-cracker rumbling, man. I tell ya.

I can hear it from here.

We let a couple of pieces go, mate.

No good? Yeah, it's not good at all, man.

Shin-crackers are ultra-hard silicified stones,

such as porcellanite, and are much tougher than the opal.

Tumbling inside an agitator barrel,

a shin-cracker can shatter any opal it comes into contact with.

Our opal pieces are small enough as they are when we do get them.

But beautiful as they are, we don't wanna smash any of them.

That's exactly right, mate.

We missed a few big pieces by the sounds of it.

It's something we don't bloody need.

Bad, eh?OSCAR: Wow.

(OSCAR SPEAKING)Yeah.

I didn't think you were meant to walk down into the dam this far.

MARK: I know. It's pretty bad, eh?

Getting worse by the day. Yeah, mate.

I reckon there's probably a week left in it, tops.

It looks like a large volume of water,

but it's only probably ankle-deep.

We've had nothing but trouble, and now we're nearly out of water.

Dad and Mark, I think, are a little bit worried.

We've definitely bitten off more than we can chew this year.

We're trying to run a massive operation. We can move a lot of dirt.

We got plenty of country to go through, and the key to that is wash plants.

And at the moment, that's been a nightmare this year.

You know, barrels breaking down.

And, yeah, different problems throughout the whole year,

and then now a lack of water.

Erm, yeah, you can't have a wash plant without water.

We should be under water here where we're standing.

Yeah, we should be. It's going down quick.

You've got other miners.

They're gonna access this water too. It's a bit of a race against time.

Soon as we can get trucks back up in here

and up on the agi site, we'll be bringing them in and washing.

Kids are gonna dig underground and try and pick and choose

the dirt we put in to try and maximise our dollar.

We'll try and make it happen. LUCA: Yeah.Righto. Good luck, boys.

Yeah.Keep in touch.

The Cheal family and mine partner Mark Bressan

are halfway through the opal-mining season,

and a crippling drought that's lingered for months

across the east coast of Australia

is threatening to shut down their entire operation.

Well, let's get into it, eh, sis?

MARK: Can you hold that? To reach the receding waterline,

Mark and Chris need to extend the pump hose.

Without water, we can't wash,

and it's very hard to find the opal without it.

We're going backwards at a big rate.

Chris and I, we got our families we gotta support,

and this is a major thing for us to support our families.

(CHRIS SPEAKING)Yep. Yeah, perfect.

We set our target at a million dollars.

A million dollars' worth of opal, it's a lot of opal.

The kids are our best shot for opal this week.

That's underground. That's a lot of pressure.

I might even go in there and pull back

and hit that a bit squarer if we're gonna do that.

Turn in to that side.Right.

6km from the dwindling dam,

Chris's children Oscar and Luca

are working 7m underground at Turner's Rush claim.

They're gouging away on an opal level

they've been following for weeks with the 2.5-tonne super digger.

We've only got one or two truckloads to wash before that water runs out,

so we're gonna make them our best truckloads.Mm.

I really want nothing more than to just find a pocket

for Mark and Dad.

Just to deliver them some good news.

Just say, 'Hey, lads, don't worry about it.

We've got it here. Just relax. It's all good.'

Pit bogger for probably a month or two now.

Erm, still kind of getting used to it a bit.

Had a few problems with it which have mostly been fixed.

Erm, so, yeah, I think I'm going all right.

I'm just putting the dirt into this bucket,

which will go up the hoist and then into the truck.

So once the truck's full, we can take it to the agi.

(RATTLING)Oh.

Hard down in that corner, eh?Yeah.

Look at that. Beautiful. It's dark too.Yeah, beautiful.

Bits of colour. We're finally coming onto some kind of colour, so who knows?

Holy (BLEEP), Luca. (LAUGHS)Oh, my God.

Oh.We got red.

That is so... Wow, look at the flash.

That is beautiful. (LAUGHS) Oh, my God.

I've just taken a swipe up the top,

and we've just got a big red flashy piece out of there and potch that thick.

Red's the rarest type of colour you can get,

and black's the rarest type of opal you can get.

So we got black like that and red like that.

If they join, it's a lot of money really quickly.

Oh. Come here, come here, come here.

What is it?Look at this. What have you got?

Red on black. Look. (LAUGHS) Oh, my God, look at that.

(BOTH LAUGH)

Look at it.Oh, my God, there's a full red plate there. Yeah, look at that.

Oh, my God. (LAUGHS) Oh, we hit it.

Beautiful, beautiful red on black up here.

Yeah, exactly what we needed. I'm very happy.

Oh, we did it. Yes. (SIGHS IN RELIEF)

Yeah, we've hit a pocket. And could be huge.

Could be absolutely huge. Could be lifechanging.

Honestly, we've got red on black up there.

Top-quality red on black.

And then about a metre away, we've got red on black and orange and stuff down here.

So we've got money everywhere. (LAUGHS)

Oh, this is what we do it for, sis.

Guys, honestly, I can't wait to see the boys' reaction.

Those two blokes give up so much for the people around them,

and they work so hard, and they get out of bed every single day.

And they just invest so much into their passion.

And this is the news I wanted, and here we are.

Now we finally get to give those boys a hug and say,

'Don't worry. You don't have to worry any more.'

That's (BLEEP) sick. (LAUGHS) Yes.

Oy!

That's it, man!

What's your problem? That's too close.To what?

You're gonna go over the edge, mate. Nah.

Look at that track.

Yeah, there's heaps of room, mate.

If that gives way, the whole thing's gonna go over.

I know you're trying your guts out.

You're pushing hard, but it's not worth (BLEEP) dying.

Calm your farm, Mark. Pull it back a bit, man.

Oy, I've got skill. I'll be right. Pull it back. I don't care.Righto.

The Blacklighters, team leader Mark I'Anson

and Paul Coon, have a massive job ahead.

High on their new claim Servo,

they're clearing thousands of tonnes of worthless surface dirt

known as overburden with excavator and dozer

to reach an opal level 9m down.

We can't have it near the edge of the cliff,

or we could end up in a lot of strife.

Cliff could crumble, over we go, everyone's dead, basically.

I've got pretty close.

I had fair trust in my skill of operating the machine

so I wasn't really too worried at all.

We're right at the beginning of the journey with this mining expedition.

We're standing on a lot of dirt that's got to go.

There's a lot of work to do. There's a lot of hours

and a lot of fuel to be pumped into this spot.

With buying machinery, we're spending so much at the Servo. It's unbelievable.

So, yeah, we need to find some opal. We really badly need to find some opal.

Hopefully we can find some and solve all our problems.

We've got a target of 350,000 again this year.

At the moment, it's not looking too good.

We've been out here for a few weeks now,

and nothing much is happening.

As Mark and Paul clear the overburden on Servo claim,

third Blacklighter John Nassar is working the team's 12 Mile claim

200m away alone.

Opalzilla, to run it on your own, it's not the easiest.

So, you've got to fill the hopper. Hope that nothing goes wrong.

Get it running properly without breaking stuff.

Stay in the dark room for, who knows,

maybe half-hour, three-quarters of an hour all by yourself.

And you don't, sort of, really wanna waste much time.

It's vital he finds opal to fund the dig at Servo.

(GROANS)

Feels like the ignition barrel's threaded off its little locknut,

and it's just spinning the barrel around without actually starting it.

Without this, I'm unable to load the hopper,

so pretty well screwed if this doesn't come good.

And then it's just come off. (SIGHS)

Well, day doesn't look like it's getting any easier.

(CLANKING)

You can hear that shin-cracker rumbling around in here, eh?

I can hear it as well, man.

You've got to be real careful what goes in the agitator.

If you've got a big rock, and it comes out,

and it hits another one, there's an opal in between it,

you pretty much will turn your chips into more bloody chips.

Or if you've got any opal in decent-size stones,

you'll smash them into small chips themselves.

Hey, Lee, what about those old grizzlies

that you've got over the back there? They should work.

Separate the bloody shin-cracker and the silt.

We'll go and take a look at them or what?

So this is the great idea, Lee? Sure is.

Slim Pickings are hoping a 50-year-old,

homemade piece of equipment known as grizzly bars

rusting 100m from their wash plant

can stop the shin-crackers entering their agitator.

Good old grizzly bars. It's mobile.

Well, some thereof.

Well, as long as it gets them shin-crackers out, mate. Whatever it takes.

Well, there's only one way to find out,

and that's put it into motion.

These are what we call grizzly bars.

They're evenly spaced grader blades off an old grader.

How it works is when you pick the dirt up, those bigger pieces,

once you dump it, all that smaller stuff

goes in between the gaps.

The bigger pieces, they roll off and go off the side.

We wanna do that with the shin-cracker and ironstone.

We're coming around now, mate.

To move the grizzly bars to the dig site,

Roger needs to traverse a cratered dirt track

with the 1.2-tonne machine chained to the excavator arm.

Probably a little over a tonne in it.

If that thing hits you, it would literally take your head off.

Oy, oy.

(RATTLING)

Come on, find the sweet spot. (SIGHS) Come on.

A broken loader ignition barrel has shut down

the Blacklighters' operation at 12 Mile claim.

She's spinning. Oh. It almost feels tight.

Come on, baby. Just get going.

(ENGINE STARTS)Oh, yes.

We might have to go order ourselves a new ignition for this thing,

but at the moment, I might keep these handy

just down here and hope for the best.

At the moment, I'm happy cos I can move some more dirt.

Just turns out the nut that holds it in

just was a bit crappy and probably threaded.

Yeah, I was sort of glad it was sort of easy fix,

but, yeah, I would have been stuffed without it.

As John processes waste dirt in Opalzilla,

Mark and Paul are struggling to clear tons of overburden

to reach a virgin opal level 9m down.

PAUL: (BLEEP) Shit.

Get out of my (BLEEP) way! That's not gonna work. (BLEEP)

We need more room. We're boxed in, man.

We need another claim.Yeah, I know.

Too hard. (BLEEP) Too hard.

That was a pretty scary moment.

We were just too close. We needed a bit more room.

Needed to be able to do big pushes, get the dirt out of there.

That's where that extra claim makes it a lot easier for us.

Mark wants to register a 50x100m claim

adjacent to Servo to dump the overburden on.

All right, that will do, man.

It comes with a $350 price tag,

and the Blacklighters must peg the land

to exact Mines Department specifications.

What's written on there, Mark? DM 19.Yeah.

Department of Mines 19.

DM 19. That's all that was on there?

That's all that's on there, man. Cool.

Just using my compass from my phone.

Just getting a bearing to the mine's peg,

and then from the mine's peg back to our main peg here.

So when the Mines Department come out, they know.

They'll go to that peg over there and they'll know

we're 50m away, 178 degrees south.

So that's all they need to know.

What a bloody good day to peg a claim, eh?

Northwest.Could be loaded out here.

Righto, man. Claim's all pegged. Yeah, sweet. Let's get into this dozer, eh?Yeah.

I'm so pumped to get this done. Heaps of stuff to do, eh?I know.

You just got to take it easy, I reckon.

Oy.What?Looks like we've been losing water, man.

There's brown stains coming out the overflow.

Whether it was too full or got too hot...

It's got no hose on it, does it?

Does it? Nah?Nah.

There should be a hose. Look at all this. So it's got hot, man.

Look at it all in there.Yeah.

Did you feel that on your back?Nah.

It's pretty brown.Huh?

That looks gross. Look at that lid.

There's no way I wanna go back to town again, man.

I've been there twice today.

We've only got our drinking water.

You thirsty?A little bit.

There won't be enough.Nah? Nah.

Dozer keeps overheating. Cost us 18 grand.

That's a lot of opal.

If we stuff that engine up, it's game over for us.

(BLEEP)

CHRIS: Here he is now.

MARK: Here's my boy. Hey, Dad.Hey, son.

How are you? How you going, mate?I'm good.

NARRATOR: In drought-stricken Grawin, Chris and mine partner Mark

desperately want to get a second agitator wash plant operational at a backup dam

to cope with the massive volumes of opal-bearing dirt they're mining.

We'll get this other agi site up and rolling, eh?Yeah, sounds good.

Are we right?Ready, mate.

They've enlisted Mark's 18-year-old son Beau,

who has driven over nine hours from Queensland's Gold Coast

with replacement parts for the plant.

That water's gonna run out pretty quick now.

And we've got this part. And it's great to see my son too.

So awesome job, mate, coming out.

We can keep going, mate, so awesome job, bud.

All right.Yeah. Love you. Love you, mate.

As Mark heads to the underground mine

to check on Oscar and Luca's progress...

Are you right?Yep. Are you good?Yep.

..Chris and Beau will install the clutch and gearbox

on their second agitator.

Right-o.

MARK: Hey, bro.We've got him, bro. We got it. (LAUGHS)

Have a look.No way. Have a look at it. (LAUGHS)

Oh.Hey, we got red on black. Far out, man.

Well done. Well done. Bro, there's a full plate of it up there.Really?

See it? (INDISTINCT) Oh, man.(LAUGHS)

I'll go back down.Yeah.

And when Dad gets here, you bring him down?Yeah.

I can't wait to tell him, man.

The expression on his face is just gonna be priceless.Oh.

(MOBILE PHONE RINGING)

Hello.(MARK SPEAKING) Yeah, good. How you going?

We've got a bit to do here. Is it urgent, is it?

Yeah, it's pretty urgent, mate, yeah.Right-o. All right.

Got to get up to the claim. It's pretty urgent.

I don't know what it's about. Just hope everyone's all right.

How does it feel being rich? (LAUGHS)

Go away. Don't you shit me.

We got red on black, bro. (LAUGHS)No way.

Look at that. We've got a full plate of it up there!Ooh, yeah.

We've got a full plate of it hanging out of the face.Yeah.

I knew you'd do it.Oh.

I knew you'd do it. Come here, darl. Thank you.

Good material.

It's red on black, and it's so rare.

And when you get it, you get top dollar for it.

It's just the best rush ever.

It's really hard to describe the rush of it to anyone.

A lot of hard work goes into it. It's not like winning Lotto.

Oh, (BLEEP).(ALL LAUGH)

We've got a full plate of it up there, brother.

And then we had a swipe here, we got red on black there,

orange, more red through here.

And then we just stopped. (LAUGHS)

Wow.

Today's life-changing.

I'm stoked for Oscar and Luca.

They're the ones that nutted it out. They've come across it.

It's pretty special. No-one can take that away from them.

Just put the mattress there. We'll just drop a little bit out.

We're just trying to limit any breakage.

You can hit a piece and just shatter it.

Here it comes. Oscar, give it a little nudge, mate.

Opal is notoriously fragile,

and the colour they've spotted may only run millimetres deep before disappearing.

Oop. Got him.

The red's gone.

Any big colour bars there yet or what?

Youse are making me nervous.

No colour, eh?Black.

Right, where do you want me to go? Right over the top in the middle?

May as well get her out in one go. Come on.

Yeah, there's potch there.

Keep going?Yeah, mate.

Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.

Any more colour?Come on.

Got colour or not?Nah.

Do you just wanna see where you wanna put that one, Lee?

LEE: Just straight ahead of you. Just to your right.

I'll point out exactly.

All right, lay him down, mate. Nice and gentle.

Wanna see how it sits on level ground.

Roger and Lee have finally moved their grizzly bars

near old-timers' waste rock and silt

in the hope that the DIY contraption can separate

opal-breaking shin-cracker from paydirt.

Look at that. That's old tailings there. That's really old stuff.

That's what we need to take, Rog. Really?

Cos that is good colour.Yeah.

Well, do you wanna dig this out? And we'll test it with the grizzly bars.

Set up over the other side, you mean?Yep.(CLEARS THROAT)

See here, these are the old tailings.

These already been processed.

The old-timers already gone through it and thrown it out.

So there's a big, thick band of it here.

There's a possibility something might be in it.

But also underneath that is the silt runs as well,

which Roger's just pulled out a beautiful bit of colour out of.

It's basically got everything we need.

Yeah, give them a bit of a shake if you can.

So, it looks like it's doing its job.

You can see here, there are some of those bigger rocks...

..yeah, stuck up there.

What we see here is what's gone in through the gaps.

Pretty happy, man.

Hell, yeah. Look at all them pieces that we're isolating.

Yeah, man.That's awesome.

Shin-cracker. Shin-cracker, be gone.

Chuck it over here out of the way so we can get the truck up here.

(GRUNTS)

Oh, well, we'll get this out on the table, eh?

Yeah, mate. After using those bloody grizzlies,

hopefully, we ain't got no more of those big shin-crackers.

We'll get it on the table and hopefully no smashed opal.

Yeah.Let's do it, man.

The largest shin-crackers have been screened out by the grizzly bars,

but Lee and Roger will need to remove by hand

any large stones that slipped through the grille

as they travel up the conveyor belt into the wash-plant barrel.

Dust is a goer.

Hopefully there's some gems in this one.

PAUL: Hope you haven't cooked it.

The Blacklighters' 50-year-old dozer,

needed to clear overburden on their new claim,

is losing water from its 129 L radiator.

Oh, man, that's the last thing we need to do, is blow this thing up.

No.We can't spend 18 grand on something

and blow it up straight away.

We were about to get going again this arvie,

and Mark noticed some water coming out

the overflow of the dozer and the radiator there.

So, we don't need to cook that cos it's a lot of money

and it's gonna make us a lot of money in the future.

Far out, man. So, what, we've only got drinking water here?

We got nothing-I'm not driving back to town again, man. That really sucks, eh?

Well, I don't feel like it.

We've got some Esky juice water.

Well, it can't be any dirtier than this.

No, well, let's see how much water we can get and if it's gonna be enough.

Yeah, good thinking, Paul. That's a bloody good idea.Maybe.

There's a bit of juice in there.

Bloody hell.

That's it.That's it?

That's better than blowing the bloody engine up, man. Stoked.

Righto, rock and roll. (ENGINE STARTS)

If we didn't have the dozer, progress, it just will slow right down.

At the moment, we don't need that. We need this top off,

so we can get down the bottom and find some opal.

At the end of the day, that's what we're out here to do.

While Paul and Mark get back to work on Servo claim...

..200m away, John is hunting for opal

to keep the Blacklighters' operation running.

It's only just me down here working Opalzilla, so...

Yeah, it's not the easiest, but I'm trying to fill the bucket.

In the dark room at the back of Opalzilla,

ultraviolet light causes all opal to fluoresce,

from low-value colourless potch to rare red gemstones.

(EXCLAIMS)

So John must snatch anything off the belt that glows.

I've got bit No.2.

You got a copy there, Paul or Mark? Either of youse over there?

Roger that, John. Yeah, what's up?

It's starting to get a little bit exciting in here.

Just had a few bits and pieces come through. A couple of tilings.

Joking. You're on it.

I don't know. I'll still be a millionaire until I put it in the light.

Roger, roger. We're about to shut down, anyway.

I'm getting low on juice, so...

Righty-o, mate. I'll just keep going in here

until youse come and say g'day.

Roger that. We'll see ya in 15.

Roger, roger.

Finished the day's work, so, yeah, I've got the bucket full of goodies.

But, yeah, until you actually wash it up,

you don't really know what you've got.

At the moment, it just looks like pretty well rocks and dust.

Let's roll him out.ROGER: Go on, roll him out. See what we got. Bring on the gembos.

Slim Pickings, Roger and Lee, are desperate to find opal

washed down from 15 tonnes of old-timers' waste silt and rock.

We pulled them bloody big pieces out, but it hasn't made the colours brighter.

Not the best start so far.

That goes in the chip bucket.

Even though it's got beautiful, looks like a lime colour,

the sand beats it, so...

Whatever we don't think is gonna cut

goes in the chip bucket.

Here, gemmy, gemmy, gemmy, gemmy, gemmy.

Oh, there you go, Lee.

Damn.(CLEARS THROAT) Oh, that's nice.

That's gonna be a nice crystal, man. Beautiful crystal.

Cracking bit of colour.Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

That's definitely looking up on this bloody tail, I tell you.

100%.Near gonna bloody start crying there

a second ago, to tell you the truth.

Hey, hey. That is nice.

It looks like it's got two bars in it.

That's what we're after, man.

That's a nice little crystal right there.

Yeah, boy. I can see that from here.

That's a beautiful stone. Happier than a kid in a candy shop, really.

How are you, buddy? EDMUND: Good to see you. Very well.

You've been busy, eh? You all right?Come in.

Lee and Roger want to sell their haul

to opal dealer Edmond Lahoud,

an industry veteran who's been mining for over 30 years.

So, we've come up with a parcel for you, mate.

That's good, mate. Let's have a look.

We hope you like it.I hope so too.

Would be nice to get the bigger chunks of this.

Yeah.Oh, yes.

These are beautiful, fellas. Nice.

Yeah, some nice little black bases in there, isn't it?

That would make nice little ring stones.Yeah, yeah.Yeah.

Slim Pickings have small chips of crystal opal

featuring the full spectrum of colours,

including rare red on a black base.

There's a mix of cut and washed stones

with the most precious weighing 12g.

What are you asking for this parcel?

We have sold to you before. We don't wanna go that tit for tat.

You know I don't make far offers. Yeah, mate, look.No, exactly right.

Please.We've priced it at about $20,000 mark.

The last parcel was a bit better for me.Yeah.

Honestly, I probably would offer $15,000 normally and maybe go up to $16,000,

but I'm willing to go up to $18,000...Yeah.

..erm, just because I need to continue doing business with you,

and you're being reasonable by not being too greedy.

Yeah.So I appreciate that.

All right, so... I hope you would accept 18 grand?

You know what? Yeah.Yeah, I reckon.

Was around about that price, anyway.

Yeah.I reckon that's probably about fair, mate.

If you're happy, we're happy. 18 grand it is, bud.

Too easy. Thanks, Edmond.Thank you.

Season's coming back on track.

Decent sale.

We wanna keep a good rapport with Edmond.

You wanna make sure you get the best deal,

and they get the best deal so they keep on coming back.

Pretty impressive day.Oh, yeah.

We had a great sale. Mate, we got what we wanted.

Cheers, man. Cheers, man. Bloody oath, bro.

Marcus, Rach, Paulie, come and have looksies.

MARK: You got it ready?Yeah.

In Coober Pedy, after working singlehandedly

to find opal for the Blacklighters,

John Nassar has washed his parcel of stones

in preparation for valuation by Mark's wife

and team finance manager Rachel.

That is beautiful, mate.

PAUL: Yoo-hoo.Look at those.

Hey, where's those big chunks?Yeah.

Little bit of a surprise for you, guys and girls.

Ooh, hello.

Look at that, man.

That is just so beautiful. Wow.

The Blacklighters have crystal opal,

predominantly blue and green with flashes of purple and red.

It's been washed and weighs 600g.

Who's thinking numbers?

I'm thinking, after having a bit of a look at it,

we've got quite a few ounces of really nice top-grade stuff here.

MARK: Tops, tops. Yeah. Beautiful tops.

Erm, a few lower grades.

These guys here are great for the everyday person to be able to purchase.

I reckon...

..we're up around the 30 grand mark.

Awesome, man.Yeah. Yes.Well done, guys.

PAUL: Yay, Johnny. JOHN: That's not bad.

MARK: Well done. PAUL: Back it up again next week.

Well done, eh? Excellent. That's the best, man.

There's diesel. There's money for the dozer.

And off we can go again. Bloody proud of you, John.

Well done, mate.Bloody hard, but it's good when you get results

for your work. You get some reward, eh?

PAUL: Thirty grand this week, eh?

I think John will be pretty bloody proud of himself, eh?

MARK: That's a bloody good week. When you're working as hard we were,

and there was two operations going,

to have one of them pull through for us...

Oh, I love Opalzilla. At the moment, she's my favourite.

MARK: It's gotta make colour in there somewhere. OSCAR: It will. Look at it.

We're out.Go around a little bit more, Dad. Yeah, a bit more, bro.

The Cheals' and Mark Bressan's hopes

of unearthing a massive rare red-on-black opal haul

from their underground mine are fading fast.

I'd be lying if I said you don't think about failing

or think about losing everything.

It's a big thing to take responsibility of where to dig and how to dig

and what to do and the whole operation.

I'd also like to find something

for Mark and Dad putting the faith in us to do that.

Oh.Come on. Come on.

Oh.Oh, green, green. Hold on, mate. Hold on.

Starting to turn, mate. Starting to form?Yes.

That green, look in that corner there.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. CHRIS: Is it gem or...?

It's starting to turn green on the thick stuff.Righto.

Bit of red on that too. Bit of red?Red.

Grey or black?Look at that.

He's right.That's opal, bro. It's opal.

There's a bit of colour coming up on the potch now.

And it's getting thicker. Pretty nervous at the moment.

Couldn't shove a toothpick up my arse.

It's puckered up that tight.

Agh. I just don't want that vision in my head.

(LAUGHTER)(BLEEP)

Ooh, ooh, look at it.

Yeah, blue.Blues, green.Green.

Oh, wow, that's beautiful colour there.

Got natural fractures in it, which is just normal.

Green in the top of that.Oh, yeah. Green. Bro, at least wash...

Oh. Who knows what's gonna come in the wash?

We don't know. The wheels will tell the story.

Sometimes you don't see it till it comes out of the wash.

We'll call it a day. It's pretty late, so...

I'm happy with what I've seen. Dollar factor, we don't know yet.

We have to wash and see what we missed.

We'll see how good youse really are. Yeah.

Probably last tail-out for the year here, too, eh?Could well be.

At Ned's Dam, the team have washed the mine dirt

in their agitator, a converted cement mixer,

for 24 hours to remove clay from the opal.

They still need thousands of litres of water

for the final rinse as they search for opal in the tail-out.

We're just racing time now.

We'll get this last lot of dirt through that agitator

and hopefully tail out some gems.

The Cheals aren't the only miners

using the rapidly dwindling water supply.

In the drought season, we put a trench right through

on the whole length there to cater for this sort of thing

so that it just could hold a little bit more water in that trench.

We've got one, two, three, four agies running all up.

So each agi's using anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 L plus.

They're doing the same as what we're doing. They're trying to feed their families.

Unfortunately, it's gonna use up this water in this dam pretty quickly.

All right, let's do it, eh?

Green-orange. Little crystal.Mm.

Wow. That'd be a nice stone there.

You never know, eh? You never know with this opal stuff.

Nice colour.Yeah.

That had a little go too. Look.Oh.

Oh, yeah. Beautiful.

Righto, are we all happy with that?

LUCA: (CHUCKLES)OSCAR: At least he's had a good time.

He's had a great time, hasn't he? Come on, mate, let's go. Come on.

Let's look at what we got for the week.

I think it might rub up pretty good. MARK: Yeah.

That's electric, eh? OSCAR: Yeah.Yeah.

Yeah, there's some high-quality stuff here.Hm.

Some of that red's stunning, eh?

This red stuff, you can see that

a lot of it's gonna face really well.

The Cheals have crystal seam opal

discovered at the mine face and in the tail-out.

The haul features the full colour spectrum

with the best stones showcasing rare red on a black base.

It's been washed and weighs 110g.

We'd actually have to have an absolute shocker

for there not to be at least 60K there.

60K, you reckon?Yeah.Really?Easy.

I think so. With the quality, polished up,

on the website, should easily have 60 grand.

Well done, sis.Well done. (ALL CHUCKLE)Well done, guys.

I'm really pumped with the quality that we found this week.

Red-on-black opal is the hardest thing to find.

It was a pretty extraordinary experience,

and, yeah, very glad to have done it with Luca.

Yeah, it was an unreal week.

Well done.

Another good week. Well done, Luca.Thank you, Mark.

It's been a crazy week.

The mood was a bit low with the agi site water running out.

We were all a bit worried. And with the pressure

of really, really needing opal, the outcome's been fantastic.

CHRIS: They've been wanting to prove themselves,

and those two have done that, and I'm extremely proud of them.

To find opal, that doesn't happen every day.

That's through hard work, determination, and not giving up.

Well done, sis. Good spotting, sis.

Thanks, man. Good digging.

Subtitles by Deluxe